


dulce et decorum vivare est

by gingergenower



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Dialogue-Only, One Shot, Poe Dameron Needs A Hug, Rogue One Feelings, Rogue One Spoilers, Star Wars: The Force Awakens Spoilers, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 16:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9243107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingergenower/pseuds/gingergenower
Summary: Poe Dameron told Finn, unconscious after a lightsaber to the spine, the story of Rogue One. Finn’s a good listener, so he keeps talking.dulce et decorum vivare est ~ it is sweet and noble to live





	

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to correct my bastardised attempt at latin, I did my best but let's be real harry potter was my main education in it

“My mum used to finish the story like that. ‘Princess Leia got the plans for the Death Star’. I never even asked what happened to them, it just… well, I mean, I was eight when she died, so I was probably too young to think about it too much.

“I was about… fifteen, maybe?... when I found out they all died. They were mostly a bedtime story, characters I’d dream about going on adventures on, not actual breathing people and I hadn’t thought about them in years, so I thought. Y’know. It’s not a big deal. I know people who’ve died younger. Jyn was the youngest, she was twenty-one. 

“It was so fucking weird, when you’re eight, twenty-one years old sounds like you’ve been Boring in that way only adults are for at least a year, being a kid’s fun and then it’s a big stretch of boring, welcome to adulthood! …well, basically I tried not to think about it. They were like childhood friends, it was weird thinking they died.

“Jyn really- my mum loved Jyn, too, talked about her the most. She used to change Jyn’s story a bit, I’ve realised, she never really mentioned the whole alone-since-childhood part, just that the resistance found her and that was home. I mean, I didn’t exactly ask, so my mum might’ve actually thought that was the whole truth, but.

“In reality, Jyn Erso was- I don’t even know how to describe her. She was alone, her whole life, right? Her mum died and her dad went back to the Empire and she basically fought to survive, she never stopped. Then the resistance blackmailed her into helping. Then her dad was killed by the resistance. And then, just when everyone’s ordered to run and hide, she just- stands up.

“She sees everyone running, and she _charges_ straight at the Empire like her body’s a goddamn bomb.

“There are loads of stories, like my mum telling me. She used to tell me Jyn did it because it was the Right Thing. I started asking around, and some people think the resistance told her they’d kill her if she didn’t go. Some people said Captain Andor got together a team and he made her go. Most people, though, most people knew my version- she was a Good Person who did the Right Thing and she was Very Brave.

“And as a teenager, I bought that. I thought; yeah, I want to do that, too. I want to die for something, I want people to talk about my death, the Man Who Saved the Rebellion, I wanted to be her.

“-god.

“Then I got in my first fight with the New Order. I was terrified but it was amazing, the rush I got, it was like nothing else, so I didn’t even notice one of my team was shot out of the sky until we got back.

“…yeah.

“Dying isn’t… when I was fifteen, I decided the best part of Jyn’s story was her death. Like it proved something, about her. Someone who died for the resistance obviously believed in it. She went out, and she knew she was going to die, and well, that was okay because it was the Right Thing.

“No one goes out there thinking they’re going to die. Life is hard, fighting like this drains every part of you that might feel good, but you don’t think about dying until you’re in the middle of it, and then you’re just scared.

“I used to think I knew that because I’d heard enough pilots die over the comms, but I really thought Kylo Ren was going to- anyway.

“If I’d been her, I’d have died over ten years ago. She didn’t even live, she didn’t get a childhood, she didn’t get to be an adult, she was just a body. No one let her be a real person, she didn’t have time to even… I was curious. There’s this speech Jyn gave, right before the attack on Scarif, and I managed to get into the data banks and find it.

“It… ‘resistance is built on hope’. That’s what she says. ‘Resistance is built on hope’. _Hope_. She hoped she’d live, she hoped the resistance would succeed, but she died not knowing they got the plans.

“I’m actually- wow, I’m crying right now. I didn’t see that coming. Um. Oh- fuck.

“I don’t want to die like Jyn Erso, I want to live like her. Does that make sense? 

"Oh, jeez, I think I’m too tired. I need to sleep, but everyone’s celebrating out there and I’ll get dragged into it if I leave here… it probably won’t bother you if I stay. You’re not going to wake up for a while. But sorry if you do and there’s just some pilot out of it next to you.

“…sorry, about my rant. I loved Rogue One, but… anyway. Night, Finn.”

**Author's Note:**

> so /too much information/ but I’m 21 and when I found out in canon Jyn is too it kinda haunted me, tbh. so.


End file.
